Torsten, If memory serves Galactus needs armor to process the energy he absorbs from planets, or something like that. There was actually an in-continutiy explanation given wayyy back in the Stan and Jack days. Of course since then Marvel has revealed that the Big G looks completely different depending on which alien race is looking at him, which makes us question whether or not he’s even wearing armor of if that’s the just the way us humans collectively see him.

*Some things* are not Galactus… he was always a visual overload, even Kirby drew more detail on him than he normally would an “average” Kirby character. It’s become fashionable to look at detail as a negative part of comics, because it can slow down the storytelling. However, sometimes the detail can be used to be an integral part of the experience of a comic book. Galactus is the focal point here. As Miles Davis put it, ” A line isn’t wrong until after you put the next one down…” In context, he meant that experience will tell you when not to put that next one, but otherwise live the questions and let the answers come forth.

I thought Stokoe’s drawing was great, but it works better as an abstraction than as a drawing of a man in clothing. Fans love Kirby’s costumes, but they look good because the costumes, with their colors and geometric shapes, don’t clash with each other visually in his artwork. Put someone in such a costume in a group of normally dressed, real-life people; a person’s eyes might hurt. The headpiece on Stokoe’s Galactus is something Lady Gaga might wear, but nobody else.